About 5 years ago I overdosed on extremely potent cocaine. A friend who had no idea how strong this stuff was crushed an extremely fat line. Within 5 minutes I went from completely sober to feeling really drunk. I instantly realized there was something really wrong. We were about to leave the parking lot we were in when I gave my car keys to my friend and got in the passenger seat.

I remember we drove out of the parking lot and were driving to get the gas station right up the road when I remember sticking my head out of the window to throw up. Everything was spinning and the next thing I remember the car had stopped and my best friend was pulling me by the arm out of the car. He tried to stand me up and reassure me that I was going to be fine. I remember there was a curb next to my foot and I tripped and fell. Either before I got pulled out of the car or maybe after (it's hard to remember) my best friend told me my heart had stopped beating. He said my eyes rolled to the back of my head and my mouth was foaming a little. And apparently before my heart stopped I put my arm up and was pointing to something with my finger. He said it had stopped for at least 20-30 seconds, which is when he did what anyone would do: he started punching my chest to start my heart. I'm sure this is probably not the standard procedure but it worked.

I don't remember the rest of that day. Honestly, I try to avoid this memory altogether and only a handful of people even know about it. I was a a kid with some money in my pocket and was doing all kinds of drugs and partying. That day really changed my life and I've never done anymore drugs since then. I've been to a war zone and not even that affected me like this incident did. I'm sure I have some kind of PTSD because just the memory of it makes me really uncomfortable. I have friends with PTSD from the war but never could understand how thinking about something could make you relive it. I completely understand now.

I know a lot of people don't believe in God, but I do. This incident, along with a handful of others in my life have cemented it in my mind. There is no way I should have survived that. The same guy who saved my life nearly died from an ecstasy overdose a few months prior to that, where I saved his life in a somewhat similar situation. Except his case was much much worse. I could see his body shutting down one part at a time. His eyes kept trying to roll to the back of his head. His hands started curling in toward his wrists. The bags under his eyes looked like they were black. I swear to God it was the scariest shit I have ever seen in my life. It was like his brain was shutting down one body part at a time. On a more positive note, we both turned our lives around. He's got a beautiful family and I'm sitting in one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Hopefully there is a kid somewhere out there who reads this and learns from our experiences. It's just a matter of time before it gets you. But you might not be as lucky as we were.